Why are women encouraged more by society/parents than men to work on their looks?

passepar2t · 2021-09-26T13:32:32+00:00

A woman doesn't need to look particularly good to be sexually attractive.

While women enjoy more leeway than men as a general rule, I think you're taking this too far. Women's looks hugely impact their lives, as do men's.

CFinCanada · 2021-09-26T13:36:18+00:00

It's tradition.

For most of human history, only nuns were given enough of a wage and shelter to get by without a man. So only nuns did not care how they looked and if they could attract them. Other women knew that without a man they would most likely starve so looks were priority one to attract an earner.

Old habits die hard.

Men and women largely want and value the same things in a mate, but there are entire communities, for instance the red pill community, dedicated to denying that.

dlee25093 · 2021-09-26T13:38:43+00:00

The same reason why men are expected to make money and be bread winners.

WilliamWyattD · 2021-09-26T14:04:06+00:00

Men have always, and still do, care more about appearance relative to other factors than women do when choosing a partner of any duration. Yes, the gap seems to be narrowing, but it is still there.

This is the basic reason why women care more about their looks. Sexual motivation is very important, and female intrasexual competition also has a large focus on appearance as a result.

As for whether appearance is more important to men or women today, especially factors that one can change, seems unclear. I bet it still matters a lot more for women, but it is hard to measure perfectly. In addition, it definitely mattered a lot more for women than men in the past, and even if this is changing some, cultural expectations tend to lag underlying factors. But you can definitely see some change.

As a corollary conjecture, it could be that men in some way understand the very bifurcated nature of female sexual selectivity and hypergamy. If you look at literature and entertainment from the past, you will see that the top guys often did work a lot on their appearance as it could give them an edge over the other men they were competing with. But perhaps the lower tier guys who knew they had no chance, even if they focused more on their appearance, didn't bother. Those guys may have intuitively known that short of a total body and style makeover (which most people can't manage), smaller improvements didn't matter in terms of sexual success.

On the other hand, even smaller improvements in appearance can help women of all levels.

As for the impact of appearance on non-sexual aspects of life success, I do think men have probably always underestimated this.

DarkMindwithReason · 2021-09-26T13:43:18+00:00

Biology underpins Psychology which underpins Society.

Men are evolutionarily biologically evolved to have stronger and higher sex drives, which directly contributes to male psychology which has evolved to respond to female beauty with sexual emotions and impulses, which in turn raises the importance and value of female beauty in society.

wtknight · 2021-09-26T13:49:22+00:00

Parents have traditionally focused on boys' utility to earn money rather than their looks. I don't think that society has caught up to the fact that a man's looks are becoming more important when it comes to female attraction compared to how things used to be. On the other hand, a woman's looks have always been tied in to what her future marriage and family prospects are, and there is even evidence that they are tied in to what her career prospects are.

chilikettlechips · 2021-09-26T13:49:38+00:00

https://i.redd.it/jeuv5muj2ol11.jpg

Women police women more than men police men.

Women level upping their looks works for both men and women.

Men level upping their looks mostly only works on men. See gym bros.

gimpgirl555 · 2021-09-26T13:41:45+00:00

Which makes it really weird as to why society mostly focusses on making women good-looking. Why parents spend far more money, time and effort into making their daughters good-looking. And so on.

Attracting a rich guy.

A guy with sexual options is not going to work hard and become a buxxer.

That's why society limits men's sexual options, and maximizes women's.

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throoowwitalllawaaay · 2021-09-26T13:52:44+00:00

Vast majority of women, just like 200 years ago, were less educated, less skilled, had no job, only consumed what their husband brought home, while not bringing any money home themselves, were more likely to lack social skills since they were afraid of talking with pretty much everyone considering that there were not many laws protecting them, had less options for success in life in general and so on... There was nothing that a woman could do that a man couldn't, but vice versa wasn't remotely true. Meaning that looks were basically the only thing women had to offer, and depending on beauty standards of the time, some didn't even had that. If society is doing it, then it's because of that.

But let's not forget that women themselves can do that too btw.
Some women realized that if they put effort into their appearance they can get certain privileges in life (so called pretty privilege).
The problem is, a lot of women realized that and a lot of them started doing it.
And now that so many women are doing it, it's not enough anymore to just do some basic makeup and be done with it if you want to get benefits from your looks. You have to do more, because other women are doing more. So basically, as long as women themselves don't stop doing that, pretty much other women will have to do it or be left behind.
It's literally the same issue as with those men who would fuck anything that walks and then basically creating problems for both themselves and other men in dating because men are feeling pressured to settle with women below them because of those men.

Kinda hilarious if you ask me how both sexes screw themselves up long-term, by wanting to get short-term benefits. Humans are dumb. lol

TryLambda · 2021-09-26T13:59:38+00:00

Women know deep down that there marital worth is based on their looks and their low N count to attract a high status male, look at every single culture in the world it focuses on beauty to attract men when its time to tie the knot and make babies etc.. The simple reason is that high value men don't want ugly kids. They want the trophy wife and good looking kids to say that they are successful.

Pilling_it · 2021-09-26T14:02:45+00:00

Why are women encouraged more by society/parents than men to work on their looks?

Because the impact on how well they are treated is clear as day, the incentives are there. A lot of things that make a man's looks attractive can't be worked on as well.

A woman doesn't need to look particularly good to be sexually attractive. For men, the differences in how you are treated are far greater.

Imbalance in sex drives. Being sexually attractive as a woman is also as valuable to them than being valued for money is for men : not much. Of course, they still have to be by the men they want, but you get the idea.

In most cases, life is far more unforgiving to men so they need any advantage, such as better looks, that they can get.

Well, most don't get looks that are good enough to relevant, so...

Which makes it really weird as to why society mostly focusses on making women good-looking. Why parents spend far more money, time and effort into making their daughters good-looking. And so on.

Old habits die hard, even if it's not in the genetics, cultural habits have existed for way too long to swipe it off in half of a century. An attractive daughter can be married to a well off man, and society made it clear since day 1 you're better treated if attractive as a woman (although we have a shift nowadays because the reality of economics don't allow this to be practical anymore).

You immediately see the results for women, and what men can do is mostly being born with good genetics to be attractive looks wise. Not much else, then it's on him to not eat like a pig and keep being in shape.

That could overtime make him more attractive than his peers given the pool, but not in the absolute, and we can see that if you don't give the tingles to a woman, you will be wasting time and energy.

TheBookOfSeil · 2021-09-26T14:07:57+00:00

Because a lot of societal standards still require women to work on their looks to be successful. A lot of jobs in the professional world still want women to wear makeup and look presentable, for example. It's also culturally engrained. Parents who were brought up into the culture end up passing it on to their children.

BumblingBeta · 2021-09-26T14:17:02+00:00

The aspects of a man's looks that determine his success are largely genetic. You can't change height - over 50% of CEOs are 6ft or taller, the vast majority of US presidents have been 6ft or taller. You can't create a masculine face. You can't change your muscle insertions (good muscle insertions are crucial for a good looking body if you work out).

All these things are genetic sadly, or require extremely expensive and risky surgery. Women just need makeup, hair extensions, padded underwear and high heels and they can completely fake the way they look.

Title	Why are women encouraged more by society/parents than men to work on their looks?
Author	ChairNegative2514
Upvotes	4
Comments	51
Date	September 26, 2021 1:26 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/pvtt0c/why_are_women_encouraged_more_by_societyparents/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/why-are-women-encouraged-more-by-societyparents.1074195 https://theredarchive.com/post/1074195

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